Memory Monday: The Jeep Accident

 When I was about ten years old Aunt Lottie and Uncle Leonard came to visit.  Our mother wanted to take them out to Raspberry Hill to see the view of town from up there at the top of the field.  Raspberry Hill was a many-acres pasture about a mile from the house and barn.  I don't remember where our older brother was but my sister, next younger brother, and I went on this trip.  We really loved Aunt Lottie and Uncle Leonard.  Aunt Lottie had the most delightful tinkle-y laugh you ever heard.  When she laughed everyone else laughed, too.

So we all hopped into the little green Jeep.  After Mother's first husband was shot down over Tokyo just days before the end of the War, she received a life insurance allotment.  There was enough money to purchase Busy Hill Farm and a little four-wheel-drive Jeep.  Some years later, after she married our father and started a family, they replaced that Jeep with another one which we all called the Little Green Jeep.  It had a hard top with a tailgate and a lift gate.  This  picture is not that Jeep but it is more or less the same thing.

If you go to the link above you will see more...

On the beautiful summer day in question the tailgate was let down  so my siblings and I could sit on it to ride out Raspberry Hill and the lift gate was raised.  We kids were so thrilled to be able to go along on the trip and even better, ride on the tailgate.  And off we went.

We were about half a mile from home when Mother went over a very rocky pot hole in the road.  As I type this I can clearly see that spot with the maple trees a beautiful canopy over the dirt road and the lush wet spot beside the road on the left.  We had just come down the hill past the road to what would become our youngest brother's beautiful log cabin by the Night Pasture.  (All our fields had names!  Night Pasture, Cross Lots Pasture, Raspberry Hill.)

So as Mother went over that bumpy pothole, as you can imagine, the tailgate was happy as we kids gripped each other BUT...the lift gate was not so great.  It crashed down on our heads with a terrible smash. And, you guessed it, our heads split open and blood came pouring out.  Mother had to turn the Jeep around but had to drive all the way out to Raspberry Hill to find a safe place for turning so she sent us back up the road to home so we could get the blood washed off.

At this day so many years later (at least 60 years...) I can only imagine how my father felt when he saw three of his little children walking back into the barnyard and the Loafing Shed and Feeding Shed where he had been working, howling their heads off and streaming blood down their faces.  My goodness!  Not a sight any parent would like to see.

We were cleaned up somehow and all survived the accident.  At this point I don't remember if we ever sat on the tailgate again, but I suspect not!  At least not for a ride!!

Repercussions: one of us had a small permanent lump on the middle of the head, one of us had a small permanent bald spot, and one of us had a different kind of permanent injury.

Fun stuff, as one of our sons is wont to say...memorable, anyway.